Life After
by CyborgWithGreatHair
Summary: My take on what life would be like for Evie if they ever managed to end the games completely. Evie/Aric fic.
1. Chapter 1

_After finishing Dead of Winter I started to contemplate what Evie's life might be like in the future if they ever managed to end the games. So this is my take on it. I may add to it at a later date if this gets an okay response._

**Life After**

"How are you feeling?" Aric asked, eyeing me appraisingly. "Are you sure you're ready for this?"

I finished braiding my hair back, pasted on a smile and lied through my teeth. "Definitely." And even though we'd been over it a million time already, I said patiently, "She's fifteen. Her training is going well. She's excelling in her studies. She's not going to stay here forever. She's ready."

"But are _you_ ready?" he repeated, laying gentle, bare hands on my shoulders. "She doesn't have to go yet. We could wait another year or two."

I shook my head, holding his gaze in the mirror. "We already promised her she could go."

"You do so hate broken promises," Aric mentioned, gliding his fingers up my throat.

Fifteen years, almost to the day, had passed since we'd finally managed to end the Games. For good. In the end it had all been remarkably unremarkable. There was no blinding Flash like in the beginning of the final Game. No triumphant fanfare. No appearance from the Gods who had sent us to this fate in the first place. One minute there was pain, and screaming. The next it was all over. The moment our daughter was born, the Games ended. Just as Gran had predicted.

Not that we'd noticed at first.

As you could imagine, the excitement – pain, exertion and exhaustion – of giving birth, and beholding the product of our love for the first time took all of our attention for several hours. It wasn't until Aric had laid the child in the bassinet near our bed, being careful to maintain a constant cloth barrier between his skin and hers, and returned to my side for a well-earned rest that we'd gotten our first clue.

He sat on the side of the bed, one hand on my sheet-covered thigh, the other reaching up to caress my face. He froze, hand in mid-air, his eyes widening. Before I could ask what was wrong, he was examining both his hands. And when that didn't yield the answers he sought, he lifted both of mine, running his elegant fingers over the backs of each. Several tense minutes later, he raised his still eide gaze to mine.

"What?" I asked, my heart pounding. He was freaking me out. "What is it?"

"Our icons," he murmured, seemingly in a daze. "They're gone."

"What?" I wrenched my gaze from his to glance down at our entwined icon hands, and sure enough, they were blank. Not a single mark on them. "We did it," I whispered, my breath rushing from my lungs in relief as fresh tears sprang to my eyes. I flung my arms around his neck.

"Your grandmother was right," Aric confirmed, wrapping his arms around my waits and pulling me tighter to him.

Recalling the day like it as yesterday, I spun around to face my husband with a new wave of love burbling up. Every day, I thanked the Gods for ending the Games so I could have this time with Aric.

Just as I rose up on tip toes to press my lips to the corner of his mouth we were interrupted, as I knew we inevitably would be, by a chorus of yells erupting from the kitchen downstairs.

"Mom!"

Sighing, I let my forehead drop to his chest and prayed to those same Gods I had been thanking just moments ago, for strength. It was like they had a sixth sense for when their father and I were having a moment.

"Ignore them," Aric murmured by my ear, wrapping the end of my braid around his fingers. "They can figure it out for themselves."

But we both knew that wasn't going to happen, because right on cue, the cry came again.

"MOM!"

Aric was hot on my heels as I slipped from our bedroom and made my way down the stairs, following the sound of our children's voices arguing. "If she's not mature enough to keep the peace with her siblings for five minutes," he muttered under his breath. "She's not mature enough to leave the grounds."

"We already promised her she could go," I reminded him as we reached the last stair and started down the hall. "You're not going back on your word. This will be a good chance for the two of your to bond."

Aric scoffed. "We bond for two hours every day during her training," he pointed out.

"Two hours which she is loath to attend most days," I countered. "You need to let her in more. You need to let them _all_ in more."

"And you think taking the girl on a two week round riding trip is going to help with -."

His words were cut off as we reached the kitchen doorway and took in the pandemonium before us. Aurora, the eldest, had a frypan raised above her head, eyes darting all over the tiled floor like she'd lost something. Her brother Raven was on his hands and knees, crawling amongst a mess of baked beans and chair legs, his cotton pyjama pants soaking up the watery sauce with every movement. Up on the counter, her small hands gripping an open cupboard door to keep her balance, stood six year old Keeya. This was _not_ a typical breakfast scene.

"What is going on here?" Aric demanded, his booming voice causing the scene to freeze before our very eyes. Three fair haired heads slowly turned to face us. I could sense Aric moving his carefully calculating gaze from one child to the next.

"Daddy!" Keeya exclaimed, her little feet stamping. "Rav brought a rat inside!"

I just barely contained my eye roll as Aric crossed the floor to his little girl. He would never admit it, but she was his favourite. Of the three, she was the only one to inherit my blue eyes, and that was all it took for him to allow himself to be wrapped around her little finger.

With Aurora he had always been careful, taking great pains to ensure their skin never touched, and as she grew so did his protective instincts. Raven, as the only boy, received stern orders to watch out for his sisters – both of them, despite being five years Aurora's junior – and was regularly engaged in 'man talks' that neither Aurora, nor I were privy to. But when his attention turned to Keeya, it was like everything softened. I'd found the pair on more than one occasion entertaining her dolls in a post-training tea party.

Not that he would ever admit to that, either. The one time I'd mentioned it in the privacy of our bedroom, he'd insisted that they were merely refuelling after the morning's exertion, ensuring his daughter had the strength to get through the rest of the day.

Of course Aurora, with all her training, also noticed the difference in the way her father treated herself and her younger brother and sister, and as such had built up a healthy disdain toward the man. Any closeness they may have achieved during her childhood had quickly dwindled once she hit puberty.

"What are you doing up there?" Aric asked the Keeya now, raising his arms to retrieve her from the counter. In the next second though, he'd snatched his hands away and was hurrying from the room. He didn't even meet my eyes as he brushed past my shoulder in the doorway.

"What was that about?" Raven asked from the floor, glancing from his younger sister, to me, to the hall where his father had disappeared.

Ever observant, Aurora set the frypan down on the stove with a clang and moved to retrieve a dish cloth from the sink, tossing it down to her brother. "Dad forgot his gloves," she informed him, grabbing a second cloth and wiping down the mess on the table. "Can't possibly touch his filthy kids without them." She rinsed the cloth, returning to the table with a muttered, "Germ phobe."

Shaking my head, I lowered Keeya to the sticky floor with instructions to stay put, all the while wondering how my eldest child could possibly endure two whole weeks with her father without flying off the handle at him. Maybe Aric was right. Maybe she wasn't mature enough to venture beyond the walls yet.

"Your father does not think you're filthy," I informed them, despite the mess Raven had made of his pyjamas and the sauce that was splattered across Keeya's upper half.

"I don't think he's ever touched me with his bare skins," Raven mused, like he hadn't heard me. Probably, he hadn't.

Aurora scoffed, sounding just like her father as she rinsed her cloth once more. "I can't blame him," she said, _'accidentally' _hitting her brother with the wet rag on her way back to the table. "I wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole." Looking up from her tasked she sought my gaze across the kitchen. "I don't understand why touching your skin is okay, but ours is so repulsive to him. What's wrong with us?"

I'd just opened my mouth to reassure them that it was nothing personal, as I had so many millions of times throughout the course of their lives, when Keeya, crouched on the floor where she'd been picking up individual beans to eat, piped up, "He doesn't want to turn us into vampires."

I blinked in confusion, but once again, my children beat me to vocalising their thoughts.

"What?" Rave asked, pulling a face that skewed his features into something almost unrecognisable. "How does that even work?"

Keeya made an exasperated sound, like it should have been obvious. "Daddy doesn't want to turn us into vampires like him," she explained slowly, popping another bean into her mouth and licking sauce off her fingers. "So she doesn't touch us with his skin."

"That's not how vampires turn people, idiot," Raven retorted, tossing his bean filled rag into the sink.

"Don't call your sister an idiot," I reprimanded automatically, emptying the beans from the cloth and handing it back so he could finish up cleaning the sauce that his pants hadn't managed to soak up. "And your father is not a vampire. How many times do I have to tell you he has a… skin condition?" Even after all these years, I still couldn't help hesitating over the lie. It was for their own good, I reminded myself. Aric included. He just couldn't bear the looks they were sure to give him if they ever learned the truth.

"Yeah," Aurora said, her voice muffled as she rummaged through the cupboards for a supplementary breakfast now that the beans had been wasted. "It would cause him unimaginable pain if we were to come into contact with his skin," she repeated my oft recited words. "Even a gentle brush would be excruciating."

The words were not untrue, I'd simply failed to mention that the pain would be _emotional_ rather than _physical_. And that they would most likely be dead, if their father was right.

I'd tried to convince him, in those first few months after Aurora was born and the Games had ended, that it would be all right. Our daughter was a combination of both our genes and would therefore also be immune to his deathly touch. But he'd refused to risk it. Even as it became apparent that my own powers had vanished along with our icons, he would not allow his bare skin to touch hers.

I can't say I blamed him.

He'd lived for centuries – more than two thousand years – cursed with the touch of death. Unable to make physical contact with any living being without killing them. He'd accidentally brought about his parents' demise – an event that still played on his conscience daily – when he was just coming into his powers. Aric would rather die himself than allow his skin to touch our children's.

After a particularly close call when Aurora was three months old and still discovering what her limbs could do and almost made her little fist connect with Aric's cheek during a rare cuddle, he'd vowed to keep his distance. Nothing I said could persuade him otherwise.

It was hard. For him. For them. For me. He was unable to shower them with the love and affection he longed to give, and as such came off as a cold hearted authority figure who spent weeks at a time away from our secluded compound. Aurora, Raven and even young Keeya had learned early on to come to me for everything rather than bother their father.

We'd agreed to tell them the truth eventually, when they were old enough to understand. We vowed to tell the full story of how the world beyond our walls came to be the way it as now. To tel them of the fine men and women who lost their lives in the name of Godly entertainment. To reveal the special powers we no longer possessed. But the time had not presented itself yet, and so the children remained perplexed by their father's aloofness.

Which brought us back to Aurora's trip.

She'd been pestering us – mostly me – since she was old enough to climb the drain pipe to the roof of the stables to let her venture outside the gates. She wanted to explore the world out there. To meet new people.

Aric, of course, was strongly against the idea. More than fifteen years may have passed since the Flash wiped out most of civilisation as we knew it and created horrible creatures and impossible obstacles for the survivors, but the world was still a dangerous place. There were still reports of bagmen creeping out from under their rocks at night to quench their thirst from every settlement Aric visited. There weren't as many as there once was, but we still hadn't been able to eradicate them completely. And then there were the looters and other unsavoury characters that roamed about under the cover of darkness – or sometimes even in broad daylight – pillaging and plundering. The rebuilding of civilisation was a slow progress indeed.

Eventually, not long before Aurora's birthday, he finally agreed to allow her to accompany him on a routine trip to a couple of nearby settlements to trade produce and supplies. We didn't want for much, safely ensconced within the walls of the compound Aric had created, in fact we often had more than we needed and so we traded our excess with the settlements for items that are not so easy to come by in this day and age.

The moment Aric conceded defeat in the matter of keeping his daughter contained forever, I'd taken her aside after her training and studies were done for the day and told her the news. She was, at once, overjoyed and nervous. Her whole life she'd been trained in martial arts and weaponry, but had never been in a situation where she'd had to use either skill. She had a great deal of knowledge regarding edible and poisonous plants, but again, had never really had to think about it, since our crops were clearly labelled. She was worried that she would make a mistake on the road and wind up ill, injured or dead, and simply be told to suck it up. Because that was the kind of man she thought her father was.

I'd taken it upon myself, then, to teach her all I could in preparation for her trip. All the tips and tricks I'd learned from Jack and Aric, or figured out on my own. I'd helped her pack her bag, watched her repack it herself. Reminded her again and again to never be without it. I don't know how many times I'd told her that her pack should be stuck to her like glue. Hopefully it had all sunk in, though, because after today, there was no turning back. They were set to ride out directly after breakfast.

Aric re-entered the kitchen, gloves firmly in place, just as Aurora was placing a plate full of toast and the various spreads we had on the table. He said nothing as he took his seat beside Keeya and started buttering her toast. I grabbed a jug of freshly squeezed juice from the refrigerator and sat down on his other side.

"Are you all set for your big trip?" I asked Aurora, glancing to her as I took my first bite.

"Definitely," she assured me, presenting with the same fake smile I'd given Aric upstairs. I noticed the bags under her eyes from lack of sleep and the way the corners of her mouth turned down as she contemplated the crunchy bread in her hand. "Ready to go," she added, absently brushing a wisp of hair out of her eyes. She'd braided her long locks in to a crown around her head, intricately weaving lengths of green ribbon through it. It reminded me so much of my crown of vines that I had to swallow back a sudden jab of longing.

Some days I missed my powers.

"You'll be fine," I assured her. "Your father's made this trip more times than he can count. Haven't you, dear."

"I know the route like the back of my hand," Aric confirmed with a small nod.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Aurora's eye roll as she muttered quietly, "Well that would be more reassuring if he didn't wear gloves all the time."


	2. Chapter 2

_While I'm in a writing mood, and I've just finished reading Day Zero, I thought I'd finish off this story. I really only ever planned up until this point. So I'm happy to call it complete. And yes, the characters are very out of character._

**Chapter 2**

We'd been on the trail for two days and had yet to see a single living person in that time. My days consisted of staring at the back of Dad's white horse, Thanatos, as I followed close behind. In silence. Dad had never been one to talk unnecessarily, but this was ridiculous. I'd tried asking him about the devastation we passed, or the settlements we were heading to, but he'd given only the barest minimum of details before lulling back into silence. It was terribly dull. Not at all what I'd expected life outside the walls to be like.

Dad had spoken like there were dangers lurking around every corner. Horrible zombies, and looters, and murderers and rapists and whatever unsavoury characters I could think of. I'd been ordered to keep my sword strapped to my belt for easy access, and even had to wear this stupid breast plate. What did he think was going to happen? Was I going to be impaled by a tree branch while I wasn't looking?

Wiping sweat from my eyes, I watched closely as he removed his gloves to fiddle with something in front of him. He'd done this every so often while we travelled, but I couldn't quite see around his torso to figure out what it was. I found myself leaning to the side trying to get a better look, which sent my horse veering off the path, stumbling over rocks and vegetation. I jerked upright, attempting to correct our route but I'd miss calculated how close the drop off was.

I'd thought that it was several feet away and it wouldn't matter so much if I veered off a little bit, despite Dad's warnings to never set a foot off the path. But as my horse slipped and attempted to right itself, sending rocks sliding down the cliff face and out of sight, I realised just how wrong I'd been.

"Dad!" I shrieked, feeling the horse slip further, her hind quarters over the edge as she grappled fruitlessly for footing. I attempted to snag a vine or a bush to save myself, but everything was disappearing under my hands. I'd managed to lay my hand on a low branch, but before I could clench my fingers around it, I was over the edge. "Daddy help!" The horse, wriggled and thrashed, unseating me and plummeting out of sight, it's shrieks of terror and pain piercing the air, even as my own ripped from my mouth. I'd managed to grab the edge with one hand, but was slipping fast. If Dad didn't do something fast I'd be dead before ever meeting a soul that I wasn't related to.

_Perhaps that was his plan, _I thought bitterly. _Perhaps he'd spent all my life training me and denying me access to the outside world and treating me like a leper so that he could one day take me out and dispose of me. The better to pay attention to my brother and sister._ He made no secret of the fact that he liked Keeya best, but even Rave got more one on one time with him than I did. I'd been forced from an early age to either fend for myself or go to mom. Dad wanted nothing to do with me.

"Dad! Please!" I cried again, feeling the rocks give way. I swung my other arm up to try to find leverage, but before I could, the section of ground that I'd been clinging to separated and I was falling. "DADDY!"

My momentum halted suddenly as Dad's head and shoulders appeared over the side of the cliff, his hand grasping my outstretched one and pulling me swiftly upwards. I was speechless. Between the fear and the adrenaline I didn't know what to do, or say or take in. Dad dragged me back to solid ground, talking quickly, assuring me that I'd be alright, running one of his hands over my limbs to be sure nothing was broken. The other was still gripped in mine. I couldn't quite find the strength to let go.

Breathing heavily, I tried to huff a tendril of hair out of my face just as Dad turned his head to meet my gaze. He reached up to move the hair for me but froze before making contact, his eyes going wide as he caught sight of his bare hand. Frantically, glanced down to his other hand, twined with my fingers, and quickly reefed it from my grasp, flinging himself away.

I laid my head back on the ground, squinching my eyes closed as I tried to get my heart rate and breathing under control and determine if I needed to change my underwear. I was fairly certain I'd come _this close_ to shitting my pants. Or, you know, dying. And dad was still worried about touching my skin. Ugh.

He was pacing back and forth. I could hear his rapid footsteps coming and going, and the mutterings under his breath. "…killed her… tell Evie… touched… dead…" There were some swear words I wasn't supposed to know in the mix as well. After several moments he came back to my side, dropping down to his knees. He was silent now. Not talking. Barely breathing.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and peered up at him.

His head was bowed, his hands – back in his gloves – were covering his head, clenched tight around his ears. I couldn't see his face, but his shoulders were shaking like he was… was he _crying? _What the hell was going on with him? Had our touch caused him the agony Mom had always alluded to? I'd always thought it was an excuse, but maybe I'd been too quick to dismiss it.

"Dad?" I asked, my breath still shaking. I'd never seen him like this. "Are you okay? Did I hurt you? Your skin?"

His head snapped up, face blotchy with tears and eyes round like saucers. "You're alive," he breathed. "You're… I didn't… Oh, thank the Gods." He wiped his face with the back of one gloved hand and turned away from me once more, probably to compose himself.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Thank the Gods you have quick reflexes, but Dad," I struggled to sit up, my whole body shaking from the adrenaline slowly leaving my body. "Your skin condition. You touched my bare skin with yours. It must be burning. What… is there something I can do to-"

Abruptly, he stood, crossing to Thanatos and retrieving a bottle of water. He took a long pull before passing it to me. "Drink," he said, not meeting my gaze. "I'll be fine, but we need to keep going, it's almost night fall. We need to find a place to camp for the night."

I nodded, getting shakily to my feet and returning the bottle to Thanatos's saddle bag. My intention had been to get back on my horse and show Dad that I was ready to go. That I wasn't at all shaken by my near death experience, that I could soldier on and deal like a big girl. But as I turned away from Thanatos, I remembered that my horse was gone. If not dead yet, then lying at the bottom of the cliff dying. I'd made a grave error and it had cost us a mount.

"I'm sorry," I murmured, hanging my head as guilt over my actions washed over me. "I didn't mean to- I was just-"

"Forget about it," Dad said brusquely. "We'll talk about it once we've made camp. Come, you'll ride in front of me." And then his hands were under my armpits, lifting me like I was a sack of potatoes and depositing me on the back of his horse before swinging up behind me. Just like he used to do when I was little and just learning to ride. Once we were both seated, he removed the pack from my back – the one mom had drilled into me never to part with – and hooked it onto his own shoulders.

We rode on in silence for ages as I replayed the moment I'd started falling and Dad's skin made contact in my mind. He hadn't seemed bothered by our connection until he went to move my hair out of my face and realised he didn't have his gloves on. Then he was appeared to be in agony, even going so far as to cry – which was completely unheard of. I started thinking that maybe dad's aversion to human contact was a mental thing; that the pain was all in his head. Maybe he had some underlying mental disability like in one of the books I'd read. That would probably explain a lot.

*o*

Eventually, we found a suitable clearing and worked seamlessly in tandem to set up the tent and start a fire for dinner. I was sitting on a rock in the semi dark, examining the graze on my palm from where I'd grappled with the vegetation. It seemed okay to me, but I guess only time would tell. Dad was puttering about making sure Thanatos was comfortable and checking our supplies, since we'd lost half of it, while out beans simmered away. The past two nights we'd shared our meals from opposite sides of the fire in uneasy silence. Tonight, though, when I announced that it was ready, he pulled up a rock right beside me, scooping beans into both our bowls without a word.

We still ate in silence, but his proximity was a new development that I couldn't get out of my head. At no point in my life had he willingly sat so close to me. To Keeya, sure, but me? I was far from his favourite.

"How are your hands?" I asked as I scrapped the last of the sauce from my bowl. Dad, I noticed, had hardly touched his. "Are they okay?"

"Fine," he assured me, lifting one of his gloved hands and turning it this way and that as if to show me how fine it was. "I- There's something I need to tell you."

"Okay."

"A long time ago, the Gods grew bored," he started slowly, staring into the fire.

I thought he was going to tell me something about his skin condition, not some fairy tale about Gods. "Dad," I said. "I almost died today, I'm not in the mood for a story."

"Just hear me out," he requested.

So I did. He spoke of gods, and games, and supernatural beings, and disasters and kids killing kids. It was all quite confusing. But as he listed the characters and their abilities and powers, he grew grave. It was as if he knew them all personally. He spoke of some with hatred, others, like the Empress chick, who could control plants and poison people with her kiss, with the light of love in his eyes. But when he spoke of Death, his tone was flat, methodical.

The Death Dude killed anyone he touched. Instantly. Except the Empress. Dad told me about their long and tragic history of death, and waiting and reincarnation and more death and betrayal. It was a little hard to follow, because he explained events from multiple games, one after another. I could barely keep up with the story.

After a while he rambled to a stop and just stared into the fire for a moment. "This isn't helping you understand," he said. "Is it?"

"Understand what?" I asked.

Shaking his head, he removed his gloves and examined his fingers. I did too, though I couldn't see anything wrong with them.

"What does this story have to do with your skin condition?" I asked.

"I don't have a skin condition," he informed me solemnly.

_I knew it!_

"Not anymore, at least."

"Okay? Then-?"

"I am Death," he told me forcefully. "I _was_ the card Death. The Endless Knight. Cursed to kill all those I touched. Except one."

"The Empress," I agreed, even though I couldn't very well see how Dad would have the touch of death.

"Your mother," he corrected.

It was my turn to shake my head then. It was all well and good him telling me he was Death and could kill with his touch – or used to be able to, or whatever – there was no way Mom was the Empress. For a start, he'd described her with red hair and mom's was very much blonde. Not as white as Dad's but still not red. "You're having a psychotic break, aren't you?" I questioned. "We should head back home. Mom will know what to do."

"Aurora," he said my name earnestly. "I'm trying to tell you the story of how this world came to be the way it is. And how _you_ put a stop to the horrid games for good."

"_Me?"_ Now he really _was_ going crazy.

"Yes," he assured me. "You. It was your birth that ended the games and got rid of the powers."

"I still don't see what this has to do with –"

"The reason I have avoided skin contact with all but your mother is because I lived in fear that my fatal touch still remained even after the games end. Even after your mother's powers had disappeared. I'd lived with it for so long that I didn't want to risk your life on the off chance that it was still there."

I was confused. Scared. What was he saying? Did he honestly believe he was the same 'Death' that had won the last several games and killed his own parents and wife? And if the story he spun was true, then how was I still alive? He'd held my hand for over a minute after pulling me back up from my fall.

"B-but on the cliff," I stuttered, wrapping my arms around my stomach protectively. "You- I-… our skin… And I'm not."

"I know," he agreed, bowing his head once more. "Yours was the first skin contact I've made other than your mothers in thousands of years that didn't result in instantaneous death. I was – shocked."

"You honestly thought you'd killed me?" I questioned. "Even with me laying there gasping for breath?"

A wry smile crossed his face in the firelight. "Perhaps I was being a little over dramatic," he shrugged, "But you have to understand, I thought I'd accidentally killed my first born."

"You're insane," I muttered. "I think I liked it better when you avoided me at all costs. Is this the kind of thing you tell Keeya during you post-training tea parties? And Raven in your 'man talks'?"

"Of course not," he said, sounding cut. "Your sister is far too young to understand such things, and as for your brother, he's made up worse theories than the truth."

"Unbelievable," I sighed.

"Perhaps," Dad conceded, "but it's the truth nonetheless."

"And you so called powers really are gone?" I asked, staring at his bare hands.

"It would appear so."

"Could we," I paused, raising my hand, glancing from it to his to his face. "Should we test it?"

"I-" he hesitated, clenching his fists, a pained expression on his face. Slowly, he took in a deep breath, then let it out even slower through his clenched teeth. "Yes," he finally agreed. "Yes we should."

I scooted closer, on my knees beside him, in between our rocks. He didn't move a muscle. Just held his hands out flat in the air, like they were pressed against a hard counter top. I lifted my hand, hovering it over his as I glanced up at his face, waiting for his approval. He just closed his eyes and nodded. I extended one finger, lowering it toward the back of his hand, painstakingly slow, until finally, I touched. There was no pain. No veins of black like he'd described in his story.

Just my finger touching his hand, as if it were anyone's flesh I'd made contact with.

Glancing again into my father's face, I spread my whole palm over the top of his hand, lifting my other to clasp it from below. I had his entire right hand enclosed between both of mine and I still wasn't dead. Either Dad's story was complete bogus, or he truly had lost his death touch.

"Dad?" I said softly.

"You're not dead," he said, opening his eyes to meet mine.

"And you're not in agony," I responded. "Mom's gonna flip when she finds out."

"She's going to tell me she told me so," Dad added.

"That too," I agreed. "You were stupid not to listen to her. All this time I thought you didn't like us, or something. I felt like I was repulsive. But if you'd just listened to Mom fifteen years ago none of it would have happened."

"I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you," he said softly, turning his hand, which was still inside mine, to grasp my fingers and pull me toward him. "I would take it all back if I could."

I rolled my eyes. "I wanna go home."

"But you haven't even met another living soul who isn't related to you!" he pointed out in surprise, throwing my words back at me. "Don't you want to at least make it to the next settlement before turning back?"

I shook my head. "I want to hear mom tell you you're an idiot," I explained. "And the sooner the better. That'll help ease the pain left from a childhood filled with self-doubt and repulsion."

**Thank you for reading.**


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